Main articles: History of China and Timeline of Chinese history
Prehistory
Main article: Chinese prehistory
Archaeological evidence suggests that early hominids inhabited China between 250,000 and 2.24 million years ago. A cave in Zhoukoudian (near present-day Beijing) exhibits fossils dated at between 300,000 and 780,000 BCE. The fossils are of Peking Man, an example of Homo erectus who used fire. The Peking Man site has also yielded remains of Homo sapiens dating back to 18,000–11,000 BCE. Some scholars assert that a form of proto-writing existed in China as early as 3000 BCE.
Early dynastic rule
See also: Dynasties in Chinese history
Jade deer ornament dating from the Shang Dynasty (16th-11th centuries BCE).
According to Chinese tradition, the first imperial dynasty was the Xia, who emerged around 2000 BCE. However, the dynasty was considered mythical until scientific excavations found early Bronze Age sites at Erlitou in Henan Province in 1959. Archaeologists have since uncovered urban sites, bronze implements, and tombs in locations cited as Xia in ancient historical texts, but it is impossible to verify that these remains are of the Xia without written records from the period.
Some of the thousands of life-size Terracotta Warriors of the Qin Dynasty, ca. 210 BCE.
The first Chinese dynasty that left historical records, the loosely feudal Shang (Yin), settled along the Yellow River in eastern China from the 17th to the 11th century BCE. The oracle bone script of the Shang Dynasty represents the oldest form of Chinese writing yet found, and the direct ancestor of the modern Chinese characters used throughout East Asia. The Shang were invaded from the west by the Zhou, who ruled between the 12th and 5th centuries BCE, until their centralized authority was slowly eroded by feudal warlords. Many independent states eventually emerged out of the weakened Zhou state, and continually waged war with each other in the 300-year-long Spring and Autumn Period, only occasionally deferring to the Zhou king. By the time of the Warring States period of the 5th–3rd centuries BCE, there were seven powerful sovereign states in what is now China, each with its own king, ministry and army.
The Great Wall of China was built by several dynasties over two thousand years to protect the sedentary agricultural regions of the Chinese interior from incursions by nomadic pastoralists of the northern steppes.
Imperial China
The first unified Chinese state was established by Qin Shi Huang of the Qin state in 221 BCE. Qin Shi Huang proclaimed himself the "First Emperor" (始皇帝), and imposed many reforms throughout China, notably the forced standardization of the Chinese language, measurements, length of cart axles, and currency. The Qin Dynasty lasted only fifteen years, falling soon after Qin Shi Huang's death, as its harsh legalist and authoritarian policies led to widespread rebellion.
The subsequent Han Dynasty ruled China between 206 BCE and 220 CE, and created a lasting Han cultural identity among its populace that has endured to the present day. The Han Dynasty expanded the empire's territory considerably with military campaigns reaching Korea, Vietnam, Mongolia and Central Asia, and also helped establish the Silk Road in Central Asia. Han China gradually became the largest economy of the ancient world. After the collapse of Han, another period of disunion followed, including the highly chivalric period of the Three Kingdoms. Independent Chinese states of this period such as Wu opened diplomatic relations with Japan, introducing the Chinese writing system there. In 580 CE, China was reunited under the Sui. However, the Sui Dynasty declined following its defeat in the Goguryeo–Sui War (598–614).
Under the succeeding Tang and Song dynasties, Chinese technology and culture entered a golden age. The Tang Empire was at its height of power until the middle of the 8th century, when the An Shi Rebellion destroyed the prosperity of the empire. The Song Dynasty was the first government in world history to issue paper money and the first Chinese polity to establish a permanent standing navy. Between the 10th and 11th centuries, the population of China doubled in size to around 100 million people, mostly due to the expansion of rice cultivation in central and southern China, and the production of abundant food surpluses. The Song Dynasty also saw a flourishing of philosophy and the arts, as landscape art and portrait painting were brought to new levels of maturity and complexity, and social elites gathered to view art, share their own and trade precious artworks. Philosophers such as Cheng Yi and Chu Hsi reinvigorated Confucianism with new commentary, infused Buddhist ideals, and emphasized a new organization of classic texts that brought about the core doctrine of Neo-Confucianism.
Detail from Along the River During the Qingming Festival, a 12th-century painting showing everyday life in the Song Dynasty's capital city, Bianjing (today's Kaifeng).
In 1271, the Mongol leader Kublai Khan established the Yuan Dynasty; the Yuan conquered the last remnant of the Song Dynasty in 1279. Before the Mongol invasion, Song China reportedly had approximately 120 million citizens; the 1300 census which followed the invasion reported roughly 60 million people.
A peasant named Zhu Yuanzhang overthrew the Yuan Dynasty in 1368 and founded the Ming Dynasty. Under the Ming Dynasty, China enjoyed another golden age, developing one of the strongest navies in the world and a rich and prosperous economy amid a flourishing of art and culture. It was during this period that Zheng He led explorations throughout the world, reaching as far as Africa. In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, China's capital was moved from Nanjing to Beijing.
During the Ming Dynasty, thinkers such as Wang Yangming further critiqued and expanded Neo-Confucianism with concepts of individualism and innate morality that would have tremendous impact on later Japanese thought. Chosun Korea also became a nominal vassal state of Ming China, and adopted much of its Neo-Confucian bureaucratic structure.
In 1644, Beijing was sacked by a coalition of rebel forces led by Li Zicheng, a minor Ming official who led the peasant revolt. The last Ming Chongzhen Emperor committed suicide when the city fell. The Manchu Qing Dynasty then allied with Ming Dynasty general Wu Sangui and overthrew Li's short-lived Shun Dynasty, and subsequently seized control of Beijing, which became the new capital of the Qing Dynasty. In total, the Manchu conquest of China cost as many as 25 million lives.
End of dynastic rule
The Qing Dynasty, which lasted until 1912, was the last imperial dynasty of China. In the 19th century, the Qing Dynasty adopted a defensive posture towards European imperialism, even though it engaged in an imperialistic expansion of its own into Central Asia. At this time, China awoke to the significance of the rest of the world, the West in particular. As China opened up to foreign trade and missionary activity, opium produced by British India was forced onto Qing China. Two Opium Wars with Britain weakened the Emperor's control. Western imperialism proved to be disastrous for the Qing Dynasty:
"The end of the Opium War marked the beginning of Western imperialism in China. Unequal treaties, imposed at the end of the war, forced China to relinquish Hong Kong, open new "Treaty Ports" to foreign trade, pay indemnities to her vanquishers, and allow foreigners to live and work on Chinese soil free of the jurisdiction of Chinese law (extraterritoriality). Over the years new wars with Western powers would expand these impositions on China's national sovereignty, culminating in the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which ended the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95."
A 19th-century painting depicting the Taiping Rebellion of 1850–1864.
The weakening of the Qing regime led to increasing domestic disorder. In late 1850, southern China erupted in the Taiping Rebellion, a violent civil war which lasted until 1864. The rebellion was led by Hong Xiuquan, who was partly influenced by an idiosyncratic interpretation of Christianity. Hong believed himself to be the son of God and the younger brother of Jesus. Although the Qing regime was eventually victorious, the civil war was one of the bloodiest in human history, costing at least 20 million lives (more than the total number of fatalities in World War I), with some estimates of up to 40 million. Other costly rebellions followed the Taiping Rebellion, such as the Punti–Hakka Clan Wars (1855–67), Nien Rebellion (1851–1868), Miao Rebellion (1854–73), Panthay Rebellion (1856–1873) and the Dungan revolt (1862–1877).
These rebellions each resulted in an estimated loss of several million lives, and had a devastating impact on the fragile economy. In the 19th century, the age of colonialism was at its height and the great Chinese Diaspora began; today, over 40 million Chinese live abroad. Emigration rates were strengthened by domestic catastrophes such as the Northern Chinese Famine of 1876–1879, which claimed between 9 and 13 million lives in northern China. Between 108 BCE and 1911 CE, 1,828 known famines occurred in Chinese territory.
In the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95, which was fought over influence in Korea, Japanese troops defeated Qing forces.
While China was wracked by continuous war, Meiji Japan succeeded in rapidly modernizing its military, and set its sights on the conquest of Korea and Manchuria. At the request of the Korean emperor, the Qing government sent troops to aid in suppressing the Tonghak Rebellion in 1894. However, Japan also sent troops to Korea, leading to the First Sino-Japanese War, which resulted in Qing China's loss of influence in the Korean Peninsula as well as the cession of Taiwan (including the Pescadores) to Japan in 1895.
Following this series of defeats, a reform plan for the empire to become a modern Meiji-style constitutional monarchy was drafted by the Guangxu Emperor in 1898, but was opposed and stopped by the Empress Dowager Cixi, who placed Emperor Guangxu under house arrest in a coup d'état. The ill-fated Boxer Rebellion of 1898–1901, in which westerners and Chinese Christians in Beijing were targeted en masse, resulted in as many as 115,000 deaths. Slavery was formally abolished in 1906.
By the early 20th century, mass civil disorder had begun, and calls for reform and revolution were heard across the country. The 38-year-old Guangxu Emperor died under house arrest on 14 November 1908, suspiciously just a day before Cixi's own death. With the throne empty, Guangxu was succeeded by Cixi's handpicked heir, Guangxu's two-year-old nephew Puyi, who became the Xuantong Emperor. Guangxu's consort became the Empress Dowager Longyu. In another coup d'état in 1912, Yuan Shikai overthrew Puyi, and forced Longyu to sign the abdication decree as regent, ending over two thousand years of imperial rule in China. Longyu died, childless, in 1913.
Republic of China (1912–1949)
Main articles: Republic of China (1912–1949) and History of the Republic of China
Sun Yat-sen, the father of modern China (seated on right), and Chiang Kai-shek, later President of the Republic of China.
On 1 January 1912, the Republic of China was established, heralding the end of Imperial China. Sun Yat-sen of the Kuomintang (the KMT or Nationalist Party) was proclaimed provisional president of the republic. However, the presidency was later given to Yuan Shikai, a former Qing general, who had ensured the defection of the entire Beiyang Army from the Qing Empire to the revolution. In 1915, Yuan proclaimed himself Emperor of China, but was forced to abdicate and reestablish the republic in the face of popular condemnation, not only from the general population but also from among his own Beiyang Army and its commanders.
After Yuan Shikai's death in 1916, China was politically fragmented, with an internationally recognized but virtually powerless national government seated in Beijing. Regional warlords exercised actual control over their respective territories. In the late 1920s, the nationalist Kuomintang, under Chiang Kai-shek, was able to reunify the country under its own control with a series of deft military and political maneuverings, known collectively as the Northern Expedition. The Kuomintang moved the nation's capital to Nanjing and implemented "political tutelage", an intermediate stage of political development outlined in Sun Yat-sen's San-min program for transforming China into a modern democratic state. Effectively, political tutelage meant one-party rule by the Kuomintang, but the party was politically divided into competing cliques. This political division made it difficult for Chiang to battle the Communists, which the Kuomintang had been warring against since 1927 in the Chinese Civil War. This war continued successfully for the Kuomintang, especially after the Communists retreated in the Long March, until the Xi'an Incident and Japanese aggression forced Chiang to confront Imperial Japan.
The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), a part of World War II, forced an uneasy alliance between the Kuomintang and the Communists. The Japanese "three-all policy" in northern China – "kill all, burn all and destroy all" – led to numerous war atrocities being committed against the civilian population; in all, as many as 20 million Chinese civilians died. An estimated 200,000 Chinese were massacred in the city of Nanjing alone during the Japanese occupation. Japan unconditionally surrendered to China in 1945. Taiwan, including the Pescadores, was put under the administrative control of the Republic of China, which immediately claimed sovereignty. China emerged victorious but war-ravaged and financially drained. The continued distrust between the Kuomintang and the Communists led to the resumption of civil war. In 1947, constitutional rule was established, but because of the ongoing unrest many provisions of the ROC constitution were never implemented in mainland China.
People's Republic of China (1949–present)
Main article: History of the People's Republic of China
Major combat in the Chinese Civil War ended in 1949 with the Communist Party in control of mainland China, and the Kuomintang retreating offshore, reducing the ROC's territory to only Taiwan, Hainan, and their surrounding islands. On 1 October 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China, which was commonly known in the West as "Communist China" or "Red China" during the Cold War. In 1950, the People's Liberation Army succeeded in capturing Hainan from the ROC, occupying Tibet, and defeating the majority of the remaining Kuomintang forces in Yunnan and Xinjiang provinces, though some Kuomintang holdouts survived until much later.
Mao Zedong proclaiming the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949.
Mao encouraged population growth, and under his leadership the Chinese population almost doubled from around 550 million to over 900 million. However, Mao's Great Leap Forward, a large-scale economic and social reform project, resulted in an estimated 45 million deaths between 1958 and 1961, mostly from starvation. Between 1 and 2 million landlords were executed as "counterrevolutionaries." In 1966, Mao and his allies launched the Cultural Revolution, which would last until Mao's death a decade later. The Cultural Revolution, motivated by power struggles within the Party and a fear of the Soviet Union, led to a major upheaval in Chinese society. In October 1971, the PRC replaced the Republic of China in the United Nations, and took its seat as a permanent member of the Security Council. In that same year, for the first time, the number of countries recognizing the PRC surpassed those recognizing the ROC in Taipei as the government of China. In February 1972, at the peak of the Sino-Soviet split, Mao and Zhou Enlai met Richard Nixon in Beijing. However, the US did not officially recognise the PRC as China's sole legitimate government until 1 January 1979.
After Mao's death in 1976 and the arrest of the faction known as the Gang of Four, who were blamed for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, Deng Xiaoping quickly wrested power from Mao's anointed successor Hua Guofeng. Although he never became the head of the party or state himself, Deng was in fact the "paramount leader" of China at that time, his influence within the Party led the country to significant economic reforms. The Communist Party subsequently loosened governmental control over citizens' personal lives and the communes were disbanded with many peasants receiving multiple land leases, which greatly increased incentives and agricultural production. This turn of events marked China's transition from a planned economy to a mixed economy with an increasingly open market environment, a system termed by some "market socialism"; the Communist Party of China officially describes it as "socialism with Chinese characteristics". China adopted its current constitution on 4 December 1982.
The death of pro-reform official Hu Yaobang sparked the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, during which students and others campaigned for several months, speaking out against corruption and in favour of greater political reform, including democratic rights and freedom of speech. The protests were eventually put down when the PLA enforced martial law in Beijing, resulting in thousands of casualties. This event was widely reported and brought worldwide condemnation and sanctions against the Chinese government. The "Tank Man" incident gained particular fame abroad, although the events in Tiananmen Square remain a sensitive and often-censored topic in China itself.
The city of Shanghai has become a symbol of China's rapid economic expansion since the 1990s.
President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji, both former mayors of Shanghai, led the nation in the 1990s. Under Jiang and Zhu's ten years of administration, China's economic performance pulled an estimated 150 million peasants out of poverty and sustained an average annual gross domestic product growth rate of 11.2%. The country formally joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.
Although rapid economic growth has made the Chinese economy the world's second-largest, this growth has also severely impacted the country's resources and environment. Another concern is that the benefits of economic development has not been distributed evenly, resulting in a wide development gap between urban and rural areas. As a result, under President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, the Chinese government initiated policies to address these issues of equitable distribution of resources, though the outcome remains to be seen. More than 40 million farmers have been displaced from their land, usually for economic development, contributing to the 87,000 demonstrations and riots which took place across China in 2005 alone. Living standards have improved significantly, but centralized political control remains tight. Although China largely succeeded in maintaining its rapid rate of economic growth despite the late-2000s recession, its growth rate began to slow in the early 2010s, and the economy remains overly focused on exports and fixed investment.
Preparations for a major Communist Party leadership change in late 2012 were marked by factional disputes and political scandals, such as the fall from power of Chongqing official Bo Xilai. During China's decadal leadership reshuffle in November 2012, Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao were replaced as President and Premier by Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang, who formally took office in 2013.
